Ebay Really Wants Me To Accept Offers

I have noted that, if you don't wish to accept offers on your sales items, you get hit with an insertion fee.

When did this start? I suppose there's some reason this would work to their benefit but it does not seem to me to be to mine.

Anyone else notice this?

There have been a few posts on the US seller boards about this.

ebay wants to control everything sellers do to the nth degree.

With all the problem buyers and sellers, and now the constant changes week after week, all kinds of bugs and glitches, I am tempted to tell ebay to take a flying leap.

Their senior execs need to be replaced with some that are not so one track closed minded.

I haven't found this, but I received an e-mail after one unsold item ended, telling me that my item had been relisted and that I was now open to offers. I hadn't requested a relisting (which I like to ensure ends at the right day and time for me), nor was I open to offers. Then had to go into ebay to change instructions that I'd never given. Sigh.

You always, always need to keep on your toes with ebay.

I had problems recently with the monthly store subscription. I opened a store at the beginning of last June and closed it at the end of June. In the first week of July, ebay sends me an invoice charging me for June and July. I didn't ask for two months - just the one. It took two phone calls to correct this issue and to credit me for the extra month. This happened once last year as well. They told me that I need to close the store before the end of the month - what bunk! I opened and closed a store last February without issue so why is it a problem now? Are they hoping I wouldn't miss the extra $75 disappearing? Again, watch everything they do and check your settings on a regular basis.

I'm surprised they haven't "improved the user experience" of this "service" by programmatically submitting an offer from me to you based on machine learning that I have previously made offers on similar lots. And then accepting the offer for you and invoicing me.

I don't use the make Offer option. I grew tired of ridiculous offers from bidders. I use a start price that is the lest I will accept. Period.

It's a penalty of 35 cents per listing to not allow offers.

"It's a penalty of 35 cents per listing to not allow offers."

That seems ridiculous. Is ebay trying to get rid of stamps? If I was a seller I would seriously looking at other options,

Peter

Stamps1962: Was this on a BIN or Auction listing?

I have yet to see this charge and I've been quite active relisting items this past week.

I do not accept offers on my items either - all it is is an invitation for everyone to ask for a discount on everything.

There is some talk on the ebay forums about it - https://community.ebay.com/t5/Selli...910#M1253670

Battlestamp, I posted four sales items this past weekend, all auction none BIN.

They are sort of sneaky about this. You have to click on a drop down at the bottom of the section where you set the price in order to get an opt out. Then at the end before you click to list I was getting a warning that there'd be an insertion charge since I disabled the offer option.

I just listed some stuff om Sat and was not hit with the ridiculous change.

The bottom line is that ebay will charge listing fees if the "free listing" quota is exhausted and the seller is taking advantage of a "free listing" promotion that requires Best Offer with Fixed Price listings. Adding "Buy it Now" to auctions may also incur higher fees.

Best Offer can be set up to reject offers below some threshold or percentage or automatically accept offers above some threshold or percentage. In my experience, buyers who make a slightly low Best Offer may try a higher offer if rejection is immediate. Automatically accepting a Best Offer can avoid losing the offer if the listing is about to end. I don't use Buy it Now for auctions.

Please keep in mind that ebay uses the term "Best Offer" when referring to fixed price listings and "Buy it Now" when referring to auctions. Also, the ebay selling web pages are a a poorly maintained minefield used primarily by casual sellers.

I've seen free listings where it says 0.00 cost when you list it. But then seen they still charged an insertion fee for the listing regardless. Free is not free. One big reason why I swapped listings from ebay.com to ebay UK as I worked out I was being hit $1.86 insertion fee and international selling fee per BIN listing on the USA site. When I went to ebay UK my bill halved, they seem to have different rules on different ebay sites.

The site constantly finds way to charge sellers more and it will only go up in cost each year. Charging money if you don't wish to accept offers is ridiculous.

One nice thing about using Sixbit Auction Software I never see any of this ebay foolishness. Several years ago Clark suggestted I look at Sixbit and I've used it ever since. If you are a large seller you should check it out.

I've concluded that ebay is trying every little trick they can to get sellers to fit into their vision of how they want to operate. They want to phase out auction formats and go to fixed price offerings with the option of 'offers'. They also try to get you to offer free shipping.